SKYFALL Movie Production Notes

Daniel Craig is back as James Bond 007 in SKYFALL, the 23rd installment of the beloved spy franchise.  Go behind the scenes of the Sam Mendes directed film with information about the production from the cast and crew for an in-depth look at the making of the new 007 movie.

SKYFALL will be released on October 26, 2012 in the UK and on November 9, 2012 in the US. The film also stars Javier Bardem as a blond villain, Ralph Fiennes, Naomi Harris, Judi Dench, and Albert Finney.

ABOUT THE FILM

In approaching Skyfall, the 23rd James Bond adventure, the filmmakers were very attuned to the fact that 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of James Bond on film.  They were determined that this entry in the longest-running film franchise in history would deliver everything that has made Bond, Bond: heart-stopping action, scene-stealing villains, beautiful Bond women, exotic locations, a killer theme, the Aston Martin DB5… and, of course, 007 himself, played by Daniel Craig.  But a Bond film is not a collection of puzzle pieces; these elements combine – like gin and vermouth, shaken, not stirred – to serve the story. For Skyfall, bringing it all together is Academy Award®-winner Sam Mendes.  “I knew that Sam would put everything behind it,” says Craig, who marks his third film as Bond in Skyfall.  “He would put all of his knowledge of movie making behind it, but also his knowledge and love of Fleming and Bond.”

While Mendes might be best known for directing a different kind of movie, he says that high entertainment and artistic integrity are not mutually exclusive.  “I have my own, personal relationship with Bond, which began when I was 9 or 10 years old – when Live and Let Die came out,” he says.  “We happen to be living in a time when it’s possible to make a big, entertaining, glamorous, escapist movie that also says something about the world we live in.  With Daniel’s performances in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, James Bond feels like a real man in a real situation again.  It reminded me of the way I felt when I watched the Sean Connery movies.”

For the producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, the anniversary brings with it added expectations.  “It’s our 50th anniversary and 23rd film so the pressure’s on to make the best Bond ever.  We have an extraordinary cast, an incredibly talented creative team and an emotionally charged script,” says Wilson.

Broccoli adds that Mendes’ relationship and history with the Bond films adds a personal element from the very start. “With his knowledge and history, he identifies with the audience – he knows what works and what an audience is expecting. And, frankly, that’s great to watch on set,” she says.

Throughout these 50 years, it has been the Broccoli family –first Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli and partner Harry Saltzman, and then Cubby’s children, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli – who have been the overseers and caretakers of the James Bond film franchise.  “Michael and Barbara are extraordinary because they work very well as a team,” says Mendes.  “Barbara has a remarkable skill for making people feel like she knows their name and knows what their issues are, and if there’s ever a crisis, she’s the one who will handle it.  Michael brings an enormous amount of experience and wisdom, combined with such a gentle presence on the set – he never bullies or lectures. If you have an idea and are wondering, ‘Has Bond done this before,’ ask Michael – he knows.”

007 Celebrates 50th Birthday With Global James Bond Day

It was Craig – with the support of Wilson and Broccoli – who invited his friend, Mendes, to direct the film. “When we started talking about it, I felt a connection with someone who had exactly the same enthusiasm and respect for the Bond films that I did,” says Craig. “And, of course, I deeply respect Sam as a director.  I said to him, ‘This is going to be a new experience for you – trust me, because I made two of them and it was a very new experience for me.  Nothing can quite prepare you.’”

SKYFALL welcomes back screenwriters Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and introduces Academy Award®-winner John Logan to the Bond writing family. Logan explains, “I felt greatly encouraged by Sam and Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson to make the screenplay as unique as I could, using my particular strengths as a writer. Coming from the world of theatre, for me, it has always been about character and dialogue.  When you look over the vast panoply of Bond films, things tend to emerge, like a lightning bolt: great moments of dialogue, great moments of character interaction – whether it’s Bond and Goldfinger, Bond and Blofeld, or Bond and Vesper Lynd. Those are the amazing scenes that just stop your heart because they’re unexpected in what’s considered a genre movie.”

Of course, for each individual Bond film, it is the director who guides and shapes the picture.  Mendes says he felt the freedom to put his own stamp on the legendary franchise.  “I have been given an enormous amount of freedom – and I’ve never felt constrained or hidebound by the genre or the franchise,” he says.  “Part of that is Daniel and Judi Dench, both of whom I already knew well.  Frankly, I’d love the two of them to be in any movie I directed. But part of it is also the enthusiasm with which the Producers greeted new ideas about Bond and M and the franchise as a whole.”

Dench, returning for her seventh film as M, says that her relationship off-screen with Daniel Craig has mirrored the on-screen relationship between M and Bond that was developed in the two most recent films. “Bond and M are two people who work well together.  She’s obviously very fond of him, and she’s often accused of being preferential towards him - but she can also be ruthless about him,” she says.  “Daniel and I struck up a good relationship the first time we worked together, and the relationship has developed as each script requires something a little bit more from us. That is especially true with Skyfall.”

Barbara Broccoli explains that Skyfall explores the relationship between Bond and M – perhaps more than in any of the 22 previous films. “We wanted to really mine the relationship between Bond and M, because it is the most significant relationship he has in his life,” says the producer. “M is the only person who represents authority to him.  You have two extraordinary actors, and we just thought - let’s go all the way. It’s worked extremely well. It’s a very emotional story.”

“Their relationship is based on mutual respect,” says Craig.  “They both know that every time the chips are down, one of them will have to make a sacrifice – it’s difficult to have a touchy-feely relationship with someone under those circumstances.  But at the same time – and Sam was very keen on this – Bond’s always had in the back of his mind that there’s a bit more.  It’s something he never shows, but the connection is there – and I get a kick out of that as an actor, to play a life you can’t show.”

007 faces a dangerous journey in Skyfall – one that shakes MI6 to its core as the agency comes under attack.  Mendes says that in directing action sequences, character is as important as stunt and camera work.  “If you’re not engaged with the characters, the action is meaningless, however good it is,” he says.  “To me, you have to put the characters in a credible and believable situation – you have to make it almost impossible for them to survive – and then show how they survive.  That’s the challenge.”

Javier Bardem plays Silva, the man who puts MI6 at risk.  The actor is no stranger to playing dark and complex characters, having won the Oscar® for his role as the unforgettable Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men.  “When I read the script, I was immediately drawn to the story and the character's possibilities.  To work with Sam Mendes and to be a part of his incredible cast and crew, I couldn’t say no to an opportunity like this,” says Bardem.

Mendes says that the key to a great Bond villain is to strike a certain balance.  “The performance has to be real enough, but also have flamboyance,” he says.  “The great ones – the Dr. Nos’, the Rosa Klebbs’, the Goldfingers’ – are ever-so-slightly theatrical and yet are all the more frightening because of it.  For Silva, Javier allowed himself to be playful and mischievous, but never lost the danger, the mystery, the strangeness, the otherness.  I think he’s done something wonderful.”

Bond audiences expect that a Bond film will deliver plenty of action, and as Wilson explains, 50 years of Bond action represents an enormous challenge for the filmmakers: what could Bond do that he’s never done before?  “We have an incredible team – including Gary Powell (Quantum of Solace, Casino Royale), Chris Corbould (Dark Knight Rises, Inception, seventh Bond film), Alexander Witt (X-Men First Class, Casino Royale, Bourne Identity).  They get together with Sam and formulate the most exciting and interesting sequence we can dream up while still telling the story.  And Daniel contributes a great deal to designing the action – he’s the one who really pulls it off.  He does as much of it as he possibly can – I think the reason the action works as well as it does is because he sells it.  That’s our one rule – it has to feel real.”

And no Bond film is complete without a Bond theme, and for the producers, there was one singer who seemed to be a 21st century heir to the legacy laid down over the past half-century by Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, Carly Simon, Paul McCartney, Nancy Sinatra, Madonna as well as many others.  “The only person that we wanted was Adele,” says Barbara Broccoli.  “She came to meet with us, she read the script, and she took it very, very seriously. With Paul Epworth, she’s written a beautiful song that delivers on every level, and of course she has the most extraordinary voice – she’s delivered a classic Bond theme.  It’s a dream come true to have Adele on board.”

SKYFALL Video: Meet The New Bond Girls

ABOUT CASTING

At the head of the cast of Skyfall are, of course, Daniel Craig as 007, Judi Dench as M, and Javier Bardem as Silva, a man hell bent on revenge.

Leading the way is Daniel Craig in his third film as James Bond.  “Bond is actually remarkably difficult part to play, because he says very little, and the moment you make him say too much, it’s not Bond anymore,” says Sam Mendes.  He operates on instinct a lot of the time.  He has his own inner demons and he doesn’t reveal them to other characters, and yet the audience needs to be aware of them, especially in this particular movie. In Skyfall the audience has got to see him, in a sense, fall apart and put himself back together again, but none of the other characters see what’s really going on behind the curtain.  Daniel’s done that, I think, brilliantly.”

“Daniel’s one of the greatest actors that we’ve ever had,” says Barbara Broccoli.  “He has inhabited the role of Bond and he’s pushed it in directions that one wouldn’t have thought possible. Starting with Casino Royale and going into Quantum, and certainly in this film, he really reveals Bond’s inner life in a way that we’ve never seen before, in a way that Fleming does in the books, where you really feel as if you understand the inner turmoil and complexity and conflicts. With this screenplay and with Sam, we’ve unearthed a lot of the emotion connected to Bond’s own past and mined the dramatic tension that stems from that.”

Dench, who returns for her seventh film as M, has left an indelible mark on the character – simultaneously filling a classic role and making it her own.  For Skyfall, the chance for the actress to re-team with Sam Mendes was irresistible.  “Sam directed me in ‘The Cherry Orchard’ when he was very young – it might have been the second or third thing he did – so I know him very well and we have a very good working relationship. We tease each other – we each give as good as we get.”

Dench once was able to meet with her real-life counterparts.  “I once actually went to lunch with MI6, with Sir David Spedding. And suddenly there they were in a room, six people – it gave me a taste of this organization and what they have to do. Every time I pass MI6 at night and see the lights on, I think, there is a building where the lights just aren’t unnecessarily on. They’re on because people are working there all the time.”

Javier Bardem describes his character, Silva, as “An angel of death – a very clean-shaven person who happens to be rotten on the inside.”

The Oscar®-winning actor explains finding the character inside the villain. “He has a very personal objective – he’s not trying to destroy the world,” he says.  “And he is on a straight line to that objective: he is a man seeking revenge.  It’s about being focused on the one person he wants to eliminate.”

“It’s always about who’s the person behind the character,” he continues.  “It would be very difficult for me to play a role that I just saw as some kind of symbol.  In this case, there is a man suffering, a man full of pain and frustration, who simply wants to fix the situation. Within that journey, there was room to be funny or aggressive, but I could perfectly understand who he was, and that helped me to portray him.”

Surrounding the three lead actors is an extremely accomplished and varied cast, and it was Mendes’ reputation as a filmmaker and background in theatre and film that attracted the finest actors in the business. Producer Michael G. Wilson credits Mendes: “It’s a great cast, and that’s down to Sam – he attracts really great actors, because they want to work with him.”

For Craig, the most important element he looks for in his fellow actors is commitment to the project.  “You have to take the time and the effort to find the right people, enthusiastic people,” says Craig. “We’ve just been blessed with every character whether it’s Ben, or Fiennes, or Bardem, or Finney, or of course Judi Dench. And then the casting of the girls: Naomie and Bérénice – finding two exceptionally beautiful women who are very serious actresses and who are intelligent and work hard.  For me, it has been a joy.”

Naomie Harris plays Eve, a MI6 field agent.  “In recent years, the Bond films have featured two girls – one an exotic type and the other a home-grown type.  Naomie manages to be both,” says Mendes.

Eve is a brilliant field agent who’s very independent, intelligent, witty, fun and courageous,” says Harris. “She’s not afraid to stand her ground with Bond, and I think that makes her so much more interesting. Playing Eve really allowed me to highlight the more adventurous side of my personality, which was a lot of fun.”

The filmmakers were pleasantly surprised by the extra layers that Harris brought to the role of Eve. Wilson and Broccoli explain, “The character written was basically a field agent with a lot of sass, but it wasn’t until Naomie came in, that we really saw the potential that this character could be something entirely new in terms of a Bond film. She’s very resourceful, she gives Bond a really hard time, but you still manage to have a tremendous affection for her and there is a wonderful flirtatiousness between them. She can hold her own with Bond. We think that audiences are really going to relate to her. She’s an extraordinary actress.”

Casting director Debbie McWilliams officially started work on Skyfall one year prior to filming, but she’s always looking out for new and interesting undiscovered talent. “I think I am in a unique position of being able to introduce new talent in leading roles without the usual commercial constraints,” she says.  “Audiences want to be surprised and the expectation is always high.  We have the world to choose from and it is my job to go out and find those special actors that people may not have heard of before. Submissions were received from all over the world and casting sessions took place in locations as diverse as Shanghai, Stockholm, Madrid, Sarajevo, Athens, Istanbul, Beijing and beyond. “

Another key role in Skyfall is that of Severine, played by Bérénice Marlohe. “If I could have invented a Bond girl, it would be Bérénice,” laughs Mendes.  “I wanted to find somebody with all of the classic components of a Bond girl: voluptuous, sexy, a woman and not a girl, mystery.  Bérénice is half-Cambodian, half-French. She gives us that mystery.  On top of all that, she happens to be a fantastic actress.”

Marlohe explains that she was encouraged to make Severine unique, “I felt I could use my own personality and imagination to create my character’s style – I had the freedom, knowing that this kind of movie allowed me that space.”

Writer Robert Wade describes the idea behind Severine, “She’s a survivor. Like many of the women in the Fleming books, she's toughened herself up because she knows what it is to have been abused at the hands of men.”

Of her character, Marlohe says, “Severine is the link between Bond and Silva,” says Marlohe.  “She’s a very mysterious woman. I wanted her to have a lot of substance.”

Ralph Fiennes plays Mallory, a government official with oversight of M’s agency.  Fiennes explains, “On the surface, Mallory has a charm, an old-world courtesy, but underneath, there’s a steel there. He is absolutely able to stand up to M and go head-to-head with her.”

Michael G. Wilson adds, “You’re not sure where Mallory’s loyalty lies in the film – whether he’s going to be a help or a hindrance to M and to Bond. He seems to ask a lot of difficult questions and be very critical. It’s a very ambiguous character.”

In Skyfall, Ben Whishaw becomes the fourth actor to play Bond’s quartermaster, affectionately known as Q, who makes a welcome return to the Bond franchise.  The role began with Peter Burton as Major Boothroyd in Dr. No, followed by Desmond Llewelyn (in 17 Bond films between 1963-1999), and John Cleese (who appeared as Q’s assistant, R, in The World is Not Enough and was later promoted to Q in Die Another Day).

Producers Wilson and Broccoli describe why Ben Whishaw was the man for the job: “When it came to trying to reintroduce the character of Q, it made sense that he would now be a young technical genius and the character was written with that in mind. Ben was the obvious choice because he has this wonderful kind of openness to him, and a real intelligence and wit.”

John Logan says, “When Bond meets Q, there’s initial suspicion of ‘Who’s this kid, with spots and why is he telling me about my job?’ But they quickly develop a mutual respect.”

Whishaw adds, “Q represents one of the central conflicts in the film – the old versus the new. It’s a battle and a theme that runs through Skyfall, between the way the world is going now and the way that the intelligence services are traditionally run.”

That’s especially true in an age when espionage takes place in cyberspace as much as anywhere else.  “The new Q is a sort of computer genius, one of only six people in the world who has certain knowledge.  He’s quite a mysterious person with a sly sense of humour,“ says Whishaw.

Albert Finney plays the role of Kincade, an endearing character from Bond’s mysterious past. “Albert Finney is the most extraordinary man; sexy, wonderful and delightful,” explains Broccoli.  “I think he is going to be very well remembered in this role because the relationship he has with Bond goes way back and he appears just in the nick of time. It’s delightful to have him in a Bond film because Cubby desperately wanted to work with him, and of course I’ve wanted to work with him, but we have never had the opportunity until now. He is a legend, a fantastic actor and just funny, charming, extraordinary and dead sexy. Be still my beating heart!”

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION DESIGN

Oscar®-winning production designer Dennis Gassner returns for his second Bond film, his third collaboration with Sam Mendes, and his seventh collaboration with director of photography Roger Deakins.  “I believe that story always comes first when planning to design any given set for any given character,” he says. “Throughout the process of Skyfall, I considered Bond’s emotional journey and how each environment affects him and vice versa. We built thirty-one sets, but the unsung environments are the locations and London played a big role in this film.”

“The opportunity to shoot in London was like a red rag to a bull with Sam,” says Daniel Craig.  “We wanted to see parts of London that we hadn’t seen before, to use the city in ways that would be impossible in most movies – but Bond’s name opens a few doors! London has a real character and that excites me because I love this city and I think it is so rarely represented well on film. We were aiming to capture the madness, the mystery, the danger, and the glamour of London. I think it’s a brave and wonderful thing to focus very tightly on the city.”

A sizable amount of the story also takes place below London’s street surface, an environment that is based on what was historically referred to as the Churchill bunker system.  During World War II, many government offices were relocated underground for protection; similarly, in Skyfall, after the headquarters at MI6 are attacked, M makes the decision to relocate.

“It’s the kind of question every government has to think about – in an extreme emergency, where do you go?” says Gassner.  “In London, during World War II, they went underground, under the city.  That is what M decides to do, and this is where they go.”

In this way, even a plot device like moving headquarters beneath the city gives the film a distinctly British feel.  Craig says, “In conversations with Sam, we wanted to make Skyfall ingrained with core British values. Making this movie unmistakably British was a dream of ours.”

Gassner illustrates the juxtaposition between a location environment, such as the Old Vic Tunnels, and sets built on sound stages, including the underground MI6 bunker.  “We need the sound stage to control the major scenes and accommodate Roger Deakins’ brilliant lighting. The Old Vic locations were a pleasure to work in and our recces of usually red taped underground London inspired the sets that we built back at Pinewood. This is the great fusion between locations and set build, one informs the other and they become a unit.”

ABOUT THE STUNTS AND EFFECTS

Stunts always play a large role in Bond films and Skyfall is no exception.  Director Sam Mendes, Second Unit Director Alexander Witt and Stunt Coordinator Gary Powell worked closely together to create a physical and believable journey for Bond.  It was important for both Mendes and Powell to approach the film from a more realistic point of view. The action started on the pages. “Writing action sequences is one of the great challenges and the great joys of being a screenwriter,” says screenwriter John Logan. “The challenge as a writer on Skyfall was to find ways to make the action as ‘Bondian’ as possible – which to me means it’s tough, it’s real and it’s heightened.”

Of course, no actor had more stunts than Craig.  Javier Bardem describes watching Craig take on the role: “There is some physicality to the role that you have to be prepared to do, but of course mine compared to Daniel’s was nothing.  And he does the action scenes so easily – From the outside, watching him, I was thinking, ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t be doing that!’” Bardem laughs.  “I mean, I did a little bit, but nothing in comparison to with what Daniel did.”

“Daniel’s an extremely hard working actor, probably the hardest working actor I’ve ever seen,” says producer Michael G. Wilson.  “And it’s not only the mental preparation, but the physical preparation. He works out like a demon, like a professional athlete.  He is really committed to the role, committed to being Bond.”

While stunt coordinator Powell appreciates the advance in digital technology and computer graphics, he prefers the action to be real. “All of us, Sam and Gary especially, felt that we need to push this movie as far as we could. And we’ve always relied on the fact that we do things for real in Bond movies, and that’s just the way it is. If it’s CGI, it’s just to help out, as opposed to creating the scene. Standing on top of a train, travelling at 50 kilometers per hour, fighting with Ola Rapace going over a bridge was probably a stand out moment.”

Broccoli adds, “Daniel contributes a great deal to designing the action and the fights in particular and he’s the one who really pulls it off, because he wants to do as much of it as he possibly can. We were in Turkey for the train sequence and I had my heart in my mouth the whole time; he and Ola were fighting on the roof of a moving train and the moves that they were doing were just heart stopping. Daniel’s the reason why the action works as well as it does because he sells it, he’s up there and I think audiences know that.”

Although the opening sequence lasts only twelve minutes on screen, it took three months of rehearsals and two months of filming to produce. Powell enlisted motocross champion Robbie Maddison, former Top Gear’s ‘Stig’ Ben Collins and British rally car champion Mark Higgins to round out his stunt team. “It’s important to lock down the action step by step so my team can learn it like the back of their hand. After rehearsing for months on end, it gets ingrained in the memory, making it less likely to make mistakes,” says Powell.

Though the action is fast paced, Mendes says the filming process is not.  “I’ll put it this way: editing action is a good deal more exciting than shooting action.  Shooting action is very, very meticulous, it’s increments, tiny little pieces.  To me, the challenge is to create parallel action so you’re never locked into a linear chase.  It’s never just A following B, there’s something else going on simultaneously, so you’re following several overlapping stories at the same time.”

Writer Neal Purvis adds, “You can have as many explosions as you like but the dramatic core of it has got to work.”

Another undeniable element to the Bond franchise is Bond’s car. The Aston Martin DB5 has become synonymous with Bond over the years.  Wilson says that when it comes to Bond’s wheels, there’s one car that says James Bond.  “We’ve flirted with other cars from time to time, but we always do come back to Aston Martin,” says Wilson.  “It’s a signature car for Bond and a classic one, his own personal one.”  And there’s no Aston Martin more closely tied to Bond than the DB5, the 60s-era production model that Bond first drove in Goldfinger.  For this story, this film, this nod to Bond’s history not only would appeal to the fans, but make sense for the story.

Writer John Logan was thrilled by the return of Bond’s most iconic car. “We’re in love with the DB5! When you think of Bond, you think of certain things very clearly and one of them is that particular car. It is Bond’s essential car and in a movie about reorienting Bond to his past and to his future, we just had to use it – beyond the fact it’s completely cool.”

Daniel Craig too, fell under the spell of Bond’s classic car, “I love them, and this story was the perfect platform to re-introduce the DB5. The film is about Bond returning to his roots and confronting old demons, so it felt right. We get some good use out of it, too.”

LOCATIONS

UNITED KINGDOM:
Production on Skyfall was based at historic Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire just outside London. Pinewood has become synonymous with the James Bond films over the years, as all but three – Moonraker, License To Kill and GoldenEye – have been filmed there. Thirty-one different sets were constructed on eight sound stages at Pinewood, including the interior of the MI6 underground bunker, the interior of the Golden Dragon Casino, where Bond first meets Severine, and the exterior of the Dead City, an abandoned island off the coast of Macao, where Silva resides.

The 007 Stage was home to the spectacular underground train crash that occurs when Bond is chasing Silva.  For the crash, the crew built two full size train carriages, each weighing seven tons.  It was too dangerous to allow people to stay on the sound stage, so ten remotely operated cameras were placed inside the 007 Stage to cover the crash from various angles.

The paddock tank doubled as the exterior of the Golden Dragon Casino. The set was lit by three-hundred floating lanterns and two thirty-foot high dragon heads. Twelve artisans were flown in from China create the authentic structures. They were made from wound steel cables, silk fabric and lit from within by 400 light bulbs.

Many exterior scenes for Skyfall were shot on location in central London. Mendes found shooting in London to be a great challenge. “It’s my home town,” he explains.  “I focused on giving it a mythic scale – I tried to give it mood and atmosphere and a sense of a threat.  You could say we’ve shot in some of the expected places, but I hope we’ve done it in unexpected ways.”

Nine different London locations were used around the city.  The Old Vic Tunnels doubled as an MI6 training ground, an underground car park on Great Suffolk Street near Smithfield Market served as the entrance to the new MI6 headquarters and the entrance to Broadgate Tower, London’s forth tallest building, was dressed and lit to look like an office building in Shanghai, the location in which a fight ensues between Bond and Patrice (OLA RAPACE). The Virgin Active pool in Canary Wharf doubled as Bond’s Shanghai hotel pool.

The National Portrait Gallery was used as the setting for a covert meeting between Bond and Ben Whishaw’s character.  The filming crew worked at night during the museum’s closing hours amongst a collection of the world’s finest paintings. At sunrise, the unit moved outside to shoot Bond entering from London’s landmark Trafalgar Square.

The opening of the teaser trailer shows Bond on the roof of DECC – Department for Energy & Climate Change. The locations department scouted various locations, but the view from the top of the DECC supplied the perfect backdrop for this important scene.

With the cooperation and assistance of the Mayor’s Office and Transportation For London, production was able to shut down both Vauxhall Bridge and Millbank for a scene where M witnesses an attack on MI6 headquarters. The explosion was represented by a few fireworks on the day, then an MI6 model was later rebuilt at a third scale on the back lot at Pinewood where Chris Corbould, the film’s special effects and miniature effects supervisor, used twenty-eight explosives to replicate the attack.

Over the course of four weekends, production filmed in the London Underground station of Charing Cross. The unit were given access to an out of service line to shoot a sections of the chase between Bond and Silva. The chase continued through Parliament Square up Whitehall, arriving in Trinity Square where the sequence comes to a climax.

Other locations in England that were featured in the film were the Old Royal Naval College and Hankley Common in Surrey.

SCOTLAND:
In the penultimate James Bond novel, You Only Live Twice, Fleming gave Bond a sense of family background, writing that Bond's father was from Glencoe, Scotland. Glencoe has one of the most iconic landscapes in Scotland – the mountains contain some of the oldest sedimentary and volcanic strata in the world. These mountains served as a beautiful backdrop for Bond and M’s drive through Glencoe’s scenic roads in the iconic Aston Martin DB5.

CHINA:
John Logan describes how Shanghai plays an important role in the storyline: “What we were looking for was opposition to London. We wanted exotic locations that seem so unlike the world that he grew up in, the world that he functions in, in a way trying to find places for Bond to be uncomfortable.”

Second Unit Director Alexander Witt and the second unit traveled to Shanghai to shoot establishing shots and driving sequences. The crew worked nights in the busy week leading up to the Chinese New Year to capture the exhilarating, ever-changing metropolis that is one of the most dynamic cities in the world. An aerial unit piloted by Marc Wolff was granted rare access to the skies above the city to shoot from a helicopter on loan from the Chinese government. Dennis Gasser and the art department worked to create the rest of the Chinese environment at Pinewood Studios.

TURKEY:
The highly anticipated pre-title sequence for Skyfall was shot in Istanbul and Adana. When Bond realizes that vital information has been stolen from an injured MI6 agent he chases the assailant Patrice with the help of Eve through the crowded and vibrant streets of central Istanbul. Bond races through Eminonu Square, one of Istanbul’s oldest and most magnificent squares, which is surrounded by the ancient Spice Bazaar and the fabulous Yeni mosque.  The art and props department created an enormous market area within Eminonu Square housing over two hundred and fifty dressed market stalls that Bond passes through on motorcycle.

The high-speed pursuit continued on the rooftops and then inside Istanbul’s famous Grand Bazaar. The Grand Bazaar is one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world, with 61 covered streets and over three thousand shops attracting up to 400,000 visitors daily. Due to the hazardous nature of the sequence, access to the location for the film unit could only to be granted on Sunday, when the bazaar is closed. Through a combination of efforts from the locations department, set decoration, art and props teams, the bazaar was dressed overnight on preceding Saturday nights to look like the hive of activity that the one would expect from the location.  500 Turkish extras and stunt background were brought into the Grand Bazaar to provide the location with its usual crowded and buzzing atmosphere. The rooftops of the Bazaar served as a spectacular platform to view Istanbul’s ancient and dynamic skyline. The production went to great lengths to protect and preserve the Grand Bazaar’s historic architecture, which included floating reinforced steel roof panels over the existing tiles to protect the original structure.

The chase required a fleet of twelve Land Rover Defenders and sixteen Audi A5’s, all modified and reinforced in different ways to the requirements of the stunt and camera departments. Two of the Defenders had driving ‘Pods’ fitted to the roof of Eve’s car, allowing Naomie Harris to concentrate on delivering dialogue while being driven by former ‘Stig’ Ben Collins at 50 mph through the packed streets of town.

Skyfall marks the third Bond film to be shot in Istanbul. The first was From Russia With Love (1963) where Ian Fleming himself accompanied Cubby Broccoli, Harry Saltzman and the shooting crew on location, and the second a brief visit on The World Is Not Enough (1999).

From Istanbul production moved to Adana to continue shooting the chase where Bond follows Patrice onto a speeding Turkish passenger train.

Adana is a modern city in the agricultural heartland of Turkey, close to the Eastern border. This was to be the setting for a major beat in the chase sequence featuring one hundred speeding cars and vans, a high-speed lorry crash, a show stopping motorcycle stunt performed by motorcycle aficionados Lee Morrison and Robbie Maddison, and of course the train sequence.

The chase on the train presented a number of challenges for the production. Working on a moving train was one of the most complicated and technically demanding parts of the opening sequence.

The climax of the stunt sequence took place at the breathtaking Varda Bridge, an hour outside of Adana. Varda Bridge was built in 1912 and is five hundred and seventy feet long and three hundred feet high. The fight comes to an end when Eve accidentally shoots Bond instead of Patrice, sending Bond flying off the train into a river below. Bond stunt double Andy Lister preformed the stunt. Riggers set up a crane on a train carriage to hold a safety line. Andy reacts to the shot by limply diving backwards off the three hundred foot drop.

Fethiye, a coastal town in the south of Turkey, was used as an off the beaten path seaside setting where Bond finds himself at his lowest ebb.

Associate producer Gregg Wilson accompanied production designer Dennis Gassner on extensive location recces to find a beach with the correct geographical assets that director Sam Mendes envisioned. The decided location was Calis Beach, a remote beach that was a great challenge for the locations department to secure.  They had to negotiate with the six hundred and thirteen part owners of the beach to allow filming to take place on this beautiful Turkish coastline.


ABOUT THE CAST

DANIEL CRAIG – BOND

DANIEL CRAIG is hailed as one of the finest actors of his generation on stage, screen and television.  Last summer, Craig starred in Cowboys & Aliens, directed by Jon Favreau and also starring Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde.  Craig played Red Rackham in director Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, the animated adventure with a cast including Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, and Simon Pegg.  Craig also starred in Dream House, by the multi award-winner Jim Sheridan and in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, directed by David Fincher, he played lead character Mikael Blomkvist opposite Rooney Mara.  

In 2009, Craig returned to the stage for a twelve week Broadway run of “A Steady Rain.”  Craig played opposite Hugh Jackman in this contemporary American play based on two Chicago cops who recount their conflicting stories of a harrowing experience.  The same year, Craig starred on the big screen in Edward Zwick’s critically acclaimed Defiance, based on the true story of four brothers in Nazi occupied Poland.  In 2008, Craig made his second outing as James Bond in Quantum of Solace, directed by Marc Forster and co-starring Judi Dench, Olga Kurylenko, and Gemma Arterton.  

Born in 1968 in Chester and raised near Liverpool, Craig was first introduced to theatre at The Liverpool Everyman.  When he reached his late teens, he moved to London to join the National Youth Theatre, before continuing his training at the London Guildhall School of Music and Drama.  Craig has since secured a variety of roles in television, theatre and film, and is now regarded as one of Britain’s finest actors.

Craig’s earlier film credits include Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Elizabeth, Hotel Splendide, I Dreamed of Africa, Love and Rage, Obsession, and The Power of One.  In 2002, Craig garnered critical acclaim for his role in Sam Mendes’ Road to Perdition, and the following year, he was seen in The Mother, based on the screenplay by Hanif Kureishi and directed by Roger Michell.  In 2004, Craig starred opposite Gwyneth Paltrow in Sylvia, which tells of the lives of poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.  In 2005, he was seen supporting Adrien Brody and Keira Knightly in The Jacket, in Matthew Vaughn’s directorial debut Layer Cake, and in Roger Michell’s critically acclaimed Enduring Love (based on the bestselling novel by Ian McEwan).  

The following year, audiences saw him in Steven Spielberg’s Oscar®-nominated film Munich, and he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Douglas McGrath’s Infamous, which also starred Sandra Bullock and Gwyneth Paltrow.  In 2006, he made his James Bond debut in Casino Royale, for which he received a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Actor and an Empire Film Award in the same category; the film became the highest grossing in the history of the 007 franchise.  In 2007, audiences saw Craig in The Golden Compass, co-starring Nicole Kidman and Eva Green, and the following year in Flashbacks of a Fool, directed by Baillie Walsh.

A highly accomplished stage actor, Craig’s theatre credits include leading roles in “Hurlyburly” with the Peter Hall Company at the Old Vic, “Angels in America” at The National Theatre, and “A Number” at the Royal Court alongside Michael Gambon.

Craig has numerous notable television credits, including the BBC adaptation of Michael Frayn’s award-winning “Copenhagen,” “Our Friends in the North,” “Sword of Honour,” “The Ice House,” “The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders,” “Kiss and Tell,” “Sharpe’s Eagle,” and in the two-part BBC film “Archangel,” based on Robert Harris’ book of the same name.  

JUDI DENCH – M

Since playing Ophelia in Hamlet at The Old Vic Theatre 55 years ago, JUDI DENCH has garnered wide popular and critical admiration for a career marked by outstanding performances in both classical and contemporary roles. She has won numerous major awards – including an Academy Award, ten BAFTA Awards and a record six Laurence Olivier Awards – for work on both stage and screen. In recognition of her many achievements, she received an OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1970, became a DBE (Dame of the British Empire) in 1988, and in 2005 was awarded a Companion of Honour.

Her distinguished list of film credits includes iconic performances as Queen Victoria in Mrs Brown, for which she won a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Academy Award, and Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare In Love, for which she received an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress. She has also been lauded for her roles in Chocolat, Iris, Mrs Henderson Presents and Notes on a Scandal, and she is known internationally for her role as ‘M’ in the latter James Bond films, from GoldenEye to the current Skyfall.

This year has seen the worldwide success of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, in which Dame Judi stars, directed by John Madden, and other recent credits include Jane Eyre, directed by Cary Fukunaga, and My Week with Marilyn, directed by Simon Curtis.

Dame Judi is also revered for her television roles, most recently starring as Miss Matty in the BBC’s critically acclaimed “Cranford”, for which she received Best Actress nominations at the BAFTA Awards, the Golden Globes and the Emmy Awards, and the subsequent “Return to Cranford”, for which she was nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe.

Dame Judi’s achievements on screen are mirrored by her celebrated career on stage.  She has won Laurence Olivier Awards for “Macbeth” and “Juno and the Paycock” for the RSC, “Pack of Lies” at the London Lyric, and “Anthony and Cleopatra”, “Absolute Hell”, and “A Little Night Music” - all at the National Theatre. Her performance in “Amy’s View”, directed by Richard Eyre, brought her a Critics Circle Award and an Olivier Award Nomination in London, followed by a Tony Award for Best Actress when the play transferred to Broadway.

Other theatre credits include: “The Royal Family”, directed by Peter Hall; “The Breath of Life”, directed by Howard Davies and co-starring Dame Maggie Smith; “All’s Well That Ends Well”, for the RSC; “Hay Fever”, directed by Peter Hall; “The Merry Wives of Windsor”, for the RSC; “Madame de Sade”, directed by Michael Grandage for The Donmar West End and Peter Hall’s production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Rose Theatre, Kingston.


JAVIER BARDEM – SILVA

As Spain's most internationally acclaimed actor, JAVIER BARDEM has captivated audiences worldwide with his diverse performances. In 2008, Bardem received the Academy Award® for Best Supporting Actor for his chilling portrayal of sociopath killer, Anton Chigurh, in Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country for Old Men. The performance garnered a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BAFTA, and countless film critic awards and nominations.

Bardem will also soon star in Terrence Malick's film, To the Wonder, featuring an all-star ensemble that includes Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams. The film follows the story of a romantic drama centered on a man who reconnects with a woman from his hometown after his marriage to a European woman falls apart.

Bardem recently co-produced and starred in Sons of the Clouds: The Last Colony, a film documenting how the colonization of the Western Sahara has left nearly 200,000 people living in refugee camps. In October 2011, Bardem and his co-producer Alvaro Longoria, the film’s director, addressed the United Nations General Assembly’s decolonization committee, urging the delegates to end human rights abuses in the region. The film premiered at the 62nd annual Berlin International Film Festival in January and has since been acquired by Canal Plus in Bardem’s native Spain.

Bardem was awarded the Best Actor prize at the 2010 Cannes film festival for his performance in Alejandro Innaritu's Biutiful. This performance also earned him his third Academy Award nomination. Bardem received his first Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of the Cuban poet and dissident Reinaldo Arenas, in Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls. He was named Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival, received Best Actor honors from the National Society of Film Critics, the Independent Spirit Awards, the National Board of Review, and received a Golden Globe nomination for this role.

Bardem won the Best Actor Award at the Venice film festival for his performance in Alejandro Amenábar’s film The Sea Inside, making him only the second actor to win the award twice. He also won a Goya Award and received a Golden Globe nomination for this role. Bardem has won The Goya Award, Spain's equivalent of the Oscar, five times and has received a total of eight nominations.

Other notable film credits include Sony's Eat, Pray, Love, opposite Julia Roberts; Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona where he was once again nominated for a Golden Globe and Independent Spirit Award; John Malkovich's directorial debut The Dancer Upstairs; Fernando León de Aranoa's Mondays In The Sun, which was named best film at the San Sebastian film festival; Michael Mann's Collateral; Mike Newell's Love In The Time of Cholera; and Milos Forman's film Goya's Ghosts opposite Natalie Portman.

Additional other film credits include Luna's Golden Balls, Dias Contados for which he won Best Actor at the San Sebastian Film Festival, Mouth to Mouth, Ecstasy, Dance with the Devil, Washington Wolves, Second Skin, High Heels, Live Flesh, and Jamon Jamon.


RALPH FIENNES – GARETH MALLORY

RALPH FIENNES has conquered every area of the acting world, appearing in lauded Shakespeare productions on stage, critically-acclaimed independent films and record-breaking blockbuster movies. Ralph trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and quickly became a star of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Across his career he has played, among many others, Romeo, Hamlet, Coriolanus, Mark Anthony and Prospero.

His movie breakout came in 1993, when he played the horrifying Amon Göth in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. The role brought a BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actor and an Academy Award nomination. He was again nominated for both a BAFTA and an Academy Award for his leading role in Anthony Minghella’s The English Patient. Throughout his distinguished career, Ralph has also worked with Istvan Szabo (Sunshine), Neil Jordan (The End of the Affair), David Cronenberg (Spider), Fernando Mereilles (The Constant Gardener), Nick Park (Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit), Martin McDonagh (In Bruges), Stephen Daldry (The Reader) and Kathryn Bigelow (Strange Days and The Hurt Locker), among many others. Most recently he stars as Magwitch in Mike Newell’s Great Expectations.

In 2005, he played one of the most feared villains in modern literature: Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He played the role to huge fan delight until the series’ conclusion with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.

2011 saw Ralph make his directorial debut, a contemporary adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, in which he played the title role. The film received huge critical acclaim. He is currently directing his second film The Invisible Woman in which he also stars as Charles Dickens.


NAOMIE HARRIS – EVE

As a critically acclaimed actress in film, television, and theatre, Naomie Harris is making a name for herself with each of her luminous performances.
She most recently completed production on the Nelson Mandela biopic A Long Walk To Freedom opposite Idris Elba. Harris will portray Mandela’s controversial second wife Winnie.
Harris recently starred at The National Theater in London in Danny Boyle’s production of “Frankenstein” opposite Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch. She was last seen on the big screen in the dramatic film, The First Grader, which won Audience Awards at the Telluride and Doha Film Festivals, and was runner up at the Toronto International Film Festival. Harris portrayed ‘Jane,’ a first grade teacher in Kenya who fights for the right of an 84 year old man to be educated—even if it means learning in a classroom with six year olds.
The London-born actress had her first major breakthrough performance in 2002 with Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later and went on to receive further international recognition and critical acclaim for her role as ‘Tia Dalma’ in Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s End.  Other major feature film credits include Michael Mann’s Miami Vice; Michael Winterbottom’s Tristram Shandy: A Cock And Bull Story; Street Kings with Keanu Reeves and Forrest Whittaker; and Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll with Andy Serkis.

On television, Harris starred in the BBC’s “Small Island” and “Blood and Oil” and in the UK’s popular television adaptation of Zadie Smith’s bestselling novel “White Teeth”, as well as the adaptation of the novel “Poppy Shakespeare”, and Peter Kosminsky’s “The Project”.

Harris has won various awards, beginning in 2003 with Best Actress at the Monte Carlo Television Festival.  In 2007, she won the Rising Star Tribute Award at the Bahamas International Film Festival as well as Best Actress at the Screen Nation Awards (which she won again in 2009).  That same year, she was nominated for a BAFTA Orange Rising Star.  More recently, she was awarded Best Actress at The Royal Television Society Awards in 2010.

Harris graduated with honours from Cambridge University with a degree in social and political science then trained at the prestigious Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.


BÉRÉNICE MARLOHE – SEVERINE

Born in Paris, BÉRÉNICE MARLOHE has always had artistic passion.  After receiving a BAC + 5 at a French university of Arts, Marlohe was introduced to an acting agent – and found she had talents that surpassed what she studied in school.

Born to a Cambodian and Chinese father and a French mother, Marlohe has an exceptional and unique look that allowed her to stand out as an actor. She began to appear on several French TV series including “R.I.S.”, “Équipe Médicale D'urgence”, “Père et Maire”, “Section de Recherche,” “Femmes de Loi,” and “Pas de Secrets Entre Nous.”  Marlohe has also played roles in the French TV movies “Le Pigeon” and “Le Temps Est à L'orage.”  After appearing in the French features Un Bonheur N'arrive Jamais Seul and L'art de Séduire, Marlohe decided it was time to pursue acting in full-force and expand her repertoire beyond projects based only in France.


BEN WHISHAW - Q
Ben Whishaw was born on 14 October 1980 in Hitchin, Hertfordshire.  He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating spring 2003.
In 1999, prior to drama school, Ben played important supporting roles in two films, The Trench (dir. William Boyd) and Mauvaise Passé (dir. Michel Blanc). After graduation, he went on to appear in Enduring Love, a film adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel directed by Roger Michell, and Layer Cake, a feature directed by Matthew Vaughan. In 2003, he starred in the popular comedy-drama “The Booze Cruise” for ITV.
Ben subsequently made his West End debut at the National Theatre in their stage adaptation of Phillip Pullman's “His Dark Materials” and starred as “Hamlet” in Trevor Nunn's electric 'youth' version of the play at the Old Vic, for which he has received tremendous critical acclaim and a Laurence Olivier nomination (2005).

It was during this run that Perfume producer Bernd Eichinger and director Tom Tykwer discovered Ben’s extraordinary talent. Ben played the lead character Grenouille in the highly acclaimed Perfume which debuted in the UK in December 2006.  Ben has also shot a feature film called Stoned, in which he plays Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones, which was released in 2006. In the same year, Ben also completed filming I’m Not Here, Todd Haynes film portrayal of Bob Dylan’s life along side the likes of Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere and Christian Bale. Ben returned to the theatre for Katie Mitchell’s version of “The Seagull” at the National Theatre in the Autumn of 2006, for which he again received great reviews. In 2007 he was nominated for a BAFTA Rising Star Award.

Ben’s most recent projects include Brideshead Revisited directed by Julian Jarrold. In 2008 Ben also starred in the hugely popular BBC drama “Criminal Justice” which saw him pick up the award for best actor at the 2009 Royal Television Society Awards, ‘Best Actor’ at the International Emmy Awards 2009 and was nominated for ‘Best Actor’ at the 2009 BAFTA Television Awards. 2008 also saw Ben in “The Idiot” in which he played the lead at the National Theatre from the end of July.

2009 was, yet again, another busy year for Ben seeing him star as poet John Keats in Bright Star, playing the lead in Mike Bartlett’s play “Cock”, and the character Ariel opposite Helen Mirren and Russell Brand in The Tempest.

Ben then starred in “The Hour” for the BBC starring opposite Dominic West and Romola Garai which has been commissioned for a second series out later this year. Next we will see Ben star as the title role alongside James Purefoy and Patrick Stewart in the BBCs adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Richard II” which is due out for release this year (2012) followed by Cloud Atlas where he stars alongside an all-star cast including Tom Hanks, Jim Sturgess and Halle Berry.


ALBERT FINNEY – KINCADE

Five-time Academy Award® nominee ALBERT FINNEY is the dynamic British stage and film actor whose career, now spanning a half-century, is one of the most accomplished in the annals of contemporary acting. Born in Salford, Albert Finney was a successful stage actor before his film career began with a small role in The Entertainer (1960) for Tony Richardson. Both Finney and Richardson went on to become key figures of the British New Wave of social realism. Distinctive because of his powerful voice, resonant of his Northern origins, Finney first made his name in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), playing Arthur Seaton, a lathe worker who refuses to "let the bastards grind you down".

He conquered US audiences and critics with his spirited portrayal of Tom Jones (1963), but shied away from further romantic parts, preferring a variety of character roles, including a psychopath in Night Must Fall (1964), the title role in the musical Scrooge (1970), an idiosyncratically conceived Hercule Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express (1974), and a bombastic theatre actor in The Dresser (1983), the latter two performances being Oscar nominated.
While such choices demonstrate his resistance to stardom, Finney has gained widespread respect playing men who are forces to be reckoned with, and as a result, continues to gain quality work across the media: on TV in Dennis Potter's “Karaoke” (1996), and “Cold Lazarus” (1996); on stage in the 1996 West End production of “Art”; in film, Erin Brockovich (2000) opposite box-office magnet Julia Roberts. Finney's more recent film credits include Traffic, Big Fish, Ocean's 12, A Good Year, Bourne Ultimatum and Bourne Legacy.


RORY KINNEAR – TANNER

RORY KINNEAR read English at Oxford University before studying to be an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), graduating in 2001. Kinnear has worked extensively at the National Theatre in London.  His work there includes critically acclaimed performances as Sir Fopling Flutter in the Restoration comedy “The Man Of Mode” (Olivier Award), Pyotr in “Philistines”, Vindice in "The Revenger's Tragedy", Mitia in "Burnt by the Sun" and the title role in “Hamlet” (Evening Standard Best Actor Award).

In addition to his theatre credits, Kinnear has worked consistently in television.  His credits include the BBC1 drama “Five Days”, “Mansfield Park” in the role of Rushworth, as Dennis Thatcher in the BBC TV drama “Margaret Thatcher:  The Long Walk To Finchley”, Septimus Hanbury in "Cranford", Bolingbroke in “Richard II”, Reverend Crisparkle in “The Mystery of Edwin Drood”, Prime Minister Michael Callow in “Black Mirror: National Anthem”, and Rupert Birkin in “Women in Love”. 

Rory Kinnear returns for the second time as Bill Tanner in Skyfall, previously having worked on Quantum Of Solace as the same character. 


OLA RAPACE – PATRICE

OLA RAPACE is an accomplished actor best known in Sweden for roles in the popular TV series “Tusenbröder” and the first season of the Swedish TV series “Wallander” which is based on Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander books. Outside Sweden, his most notable work is in the 2000 Lukas Moodysson film Together which won several awards at international film festivals. The international accolades came back in 2010 with Pernilla August's Beyond, which won the Audience Award at the Venice Film Festival 2010 and the Guldbagge (Swedish Academy Award). Rapace is also known for his acting role as Daniel Nordström in the Danish police TV show “Anna Pihl” and had a small role in the English language Rancid (2004).

His latest projects are Swedish period noire-crime set in the 1950's, based on the books by Maria Lang as well as a biopic of Bosse Högberg, a Swedish boxing legend.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

SAM MENDES - DIRECTOR

SAM MENDES’ work directing theatre and film spans twenty-five years.  

He began his career in the theatre as Assistant Director at the Studio Theatre in Chichester in 1987 and was the first Artistic Director of the Minerva Theatre in 1989. By 1990, he was directing for the RSC. His work for them included highly acclaimed versions of “Troilus and Cressida,” “The Alchemist,” “The Tempest,” and “Richard III.” He also directed for the National Theatre productions of “The Sea,” “The Rise and Fall of Little Voice,” “The Birthday Party,” and “Othello.”

In 1992, Mendes founded the Donmar Warehouse in London, which he ran as Artistic Director until 2002.  Within this time Mendes helped establish the theatre as one of the most dynamic and successful playhouses in the world.  His productions there included “Assassins,” “Translations,” “Cabaret,” “Glengarry Glen Ross,” “The Glass Menagerie,” “Company,” “Habeas Corpus,” “The Front Page,” “The Blue Room,” “To The Green Fields Beyond,” “Uncle Vanya,” and “Twelfth Night,” both of which transferred to The Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2004.  Mendes won a number of Olivier Awards during this period, including an unprecedented three awards in 2003, two for his work on “Uncle Vanya” and “Twelfth Night,” and one in recognition of the Donmar’s decade-long period of success under his guidance. Several productions transferred to Broadway, and Mendes won Tony Awards as a producer of both “The Real Thing” and “Take Me Out.”

Other work outside of The Donmar has included directing West End productions of “The Cherry Orchard,” “The Plough and the Stars” (both starring Judi Dench), “Kean,” “London Assurance,” and “Oliver!,” which ran for four years at the London Palladium. On Broadway, Mendes directed “The Blue Room,” “Gypsy,” “The Vertical Hour,” and his long-running production of “Cabaret,” which received four Tony Awards including Best Musical Revival.

In Spring 2009, Mendes embarked on The Bridge Project, a three-year venture co-produced by his company, Neal Street Productions, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Old Vic, London.  In this unique collaboration, Mendes directed a transatlantic company in a double-bill of classic plays, which began with “A Winter's Tale” and “The Cherry Orchard,” led by longtime collaborator Simon Russell Beale and Ethan Hawke. In the second season of The Bridge Project, Mendes directed an international company led by Stephen Dillane in “As You Like It” and “The Tempest.”  In 2011/2012 his production of “Richard III”, starring Kevin Spacey, toured the world.

Mendes’ film work began in 1999 with his film directorial debut, American Beauty, for which he received the Academy Award® for Best Director as well as a Golden Globe and the DGA award for Outstanding Direction. The film won a further four Academy Awards®, including Best Picture. 

This was followed in 2002 by the movie adaptation of the graphic novel Road to Perdition, starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman.  The film earned seven Academy Award® nominations. Mendes then returned to the screen in 2006 directing Jarhead, an adaptation of Anthony Swofford's book of the same name, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx and Peter Sarsgaard.

Mendes’ next film, Revolutionary Road, was released in 2009.  Based on the novel by Richard Yates and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, the film earned three Academy Award® nominations and won one Golden Globe.  Most recently, Mendes directed the comedy Away We Go, based on an original screenplay written by novelists Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida.

As well as working as a director, Mendes acts as Executive Producer on all Neal Street projects and has also produced and executive produced films and theatre, most recently Things We Lost In The Fire, directed by Susanne Bier, starring Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro; Starter For Ten; Stuart – A Life Backwards, The Kite Runner, four of Shakespeare’s History plays – “Richard III,” “Henry IV” Parts I and II, and “Henry V” – for the BBC/NBC Universal and WNET under the title “The Hollow Crown”, and “Shrek the Musical.”

Mendes’ work in theatre and film brought him a CBE in 2000, for services to the arts, and the Director's Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.



MICHAEL G. WILSON - PRODUCER

MICHAEL G. WILSON joined EON Productions in a legal-administrative capacity in 1972 and was named assistant to the producer on The Spy Who Loved Me.  He worked his way to executive producer on Moonraker and continued with that credit on the following two Bond films.  His creative abilities are evident in For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View to a Kill, The Living Daylights, and Licence to Kill, all of which he co-wrote. He became producer with his stepfather, the late Albert R. Broccoli, on A View to a Kill, continuing with The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill.  He is currently Managing Director of EON Productions Ltd.

When James Bond returned to the screen after an absence of six years, Wilson produced the hugely successful GoldenEye with his sister Barbara Broccoli, followed by the blockbuster 007 releases Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough, Die Another Day, Casino Royale, and Quantum of Solace.

Wilson graduated from college as an electrical engineer.  He then studied law at Stanford University, worked for the US government and later became a partner in a Washington D.C. firm that specialized in international law.

Wilson is interested in all aspects of still photography and is recognized as a leading expert on 19th century photography.  He is a member of the Advisory Council of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television (a branch of the NMSI) and, in 1998, he founded the Wilson Centre for study and research on the history and aesthetics of photography.

Together with Barbara Broccoli he has produced a number of stage productions including “La Cava” (2000), “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” (2002 London, 2005 Broadway), and “A Steady Rain” (2009). Earlier this year they adapted the critically acclaimed film “Once” which opened on Broadway to rave reviews. More recently, Wilson and Broccoli adapted “Chariots of Fire” which will run in London’s West End during the 2012 Olympic summer.

Wilson was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) in Her Majesty the Queen’s New Year Honours List 2008.


BARBARA BROCCOLI - PRODUCER

A graduate of Loyola University, Los Angeles, where she majored in motion picture and television communications, BARBARA BROCCOLI has worked in the production and casting departments at EON Productions for many years.

Starting her career as an assistant director on Octopussy and A View to a Kill, Broccoli worked her way up to become associate producer on The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill with Tom Pevsner. She and Wilson then went on to produce GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough, Die Another Day, Casino Royale, and Quantum of Solace.

Through her own independent production company, Astoria Productions, Broccoli produced “Crime of the Century” for HBO.  Starring Stephen Rea and Isabella Rossellini, the television film was directed by Mark Rydell from a screenplay by William Nicholson.  Based on a book by Ludovic Kennedy about the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, the film was nominated for four Golden Globe Awards – Best Film, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actor – in the category covering Motion Pictures or Mini-Series made for Television.

Broccoli was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) in Her Majesty the Queen’s New Years Honours list 2008.  Broccoli is also Chair of First Light, UK’s leading filmmaking initiative for young people.

Together with Michael Wilson she has produced a number of stage productions including “La Cava” (2000), “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” (2002 London, 2005 Broadway), and “A Steady Rain” (2009). Earlier this year they adapted the critically acclaimed film “Once” which opened on Broadway to rave reviews and garnered 8 Tony Awards. More recently, Wilson and Broccoli adapted “Chariots of Fire,” which opened this past summer in London’s West End.


NEAL PURVIS & ROBERT WADE  - WRITERS

NEAL PURVIS & ROBERT WADE had their first success in 1991 with the screenplay of the controversial drama Let Him Have It. The critically acclaimed film, directed by Peter Medak, was screened for Parliament and played a part in Derek Bentley's eventual posthumous pardon.
They have worked in a variety of genres with screenplays such as Plunkett & Macleane, starring Robert Carlyle and Liv Tyler, Johnny English starring Rowan Atkinson and John Malkovich, and worked on The Italian Job starring Mark Wahlberg and Edward Norton.  As well as writing the James Bond films The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day, they wrote and co-produced Return To Sender for director Bille August and performed the same duties on Stoned for director Stephen Woolley.
For Casino Royale they received two BAFTA nominations as well as an EDGAR nomination from the Mystery Writers of America.  They have since co-written Quantum Of Solace and adapted John le Carré’s The Mission Song for Potboiler Films.
Having co-written Skyfall, they are now producing their own CORSICA ’72, an epic crime drama to be directed by Chan-Wook Park, as well as Cocaine Nights, their recent adaptation of the novel by JG Ballard, and writing a fact-based film about East German spies operating in Manhattan in the 1970s, Our Man In New York.

JOHN LOGAN – WRITER

JOHN LOGAN is one of Hollywood’s most in-demand screenwriters. He has been nominated three times for the Academy Award®,  for Gladiator, The Aviator, and Hugo.  His other film work includes Sweeney Todd, The Last Samurai, Any Given Sunday and Coriolanus. He is currently writing the film version of the musical Jersey Boys.

John received the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Drama League awards for his play “Red”. This play premiered at the Donmar Warehouse in London and at the Golden Theatre on Broadway. "Red" has been seen in over 80 different productions in America and over 30 international productions. He is the author of more than a dozen other plays including “Never the Sinner” and “Hauptmann”. His newest play "Peter and Alice" will premiere in London next year.

CALLUM McDOUGALL – EXECUTIVE PRODUCER and UNIT PRODUCTION MANAGER

SKYFALL is the eighth film in the James Bond series with which executive producer CALLUM McDOUGALL has been involved.  He began working for the franchise as an assistant director on The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence To Kill (1988).  He was unit production manager on GoldenEye (1995), production supervisor on Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), co-producer on Die Another Day (2002) and executive producer on Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum Of Solace (2008).

Callum first entered the film industry in 1978 as a production runner on films such as Victor/Victoria and the “Hammer House of Horror” television series.  As a key second assistant director he worked on over twenty films including Air America, Jim Henson’s The Witches, The Storyteller and The Muppet Christmas Carol, the award winning television series “Inspector Morse” and “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles” on which he was promoted to the role of unit manager for two further seasons.  Credits as unit production manager include Fierce Creatures, 101 Dalmatians and Alien Love Triangle.   He was executive in charge of production at DNA Films on Beautiful Creatures, Strictly Sinatra and The Final Curtain.

McDougall co-produced The Beach, produced The Parole Officer and executive produced Harry Potter and The Prisoner Of Azkaban and more recently Wrath Of The Titans.


ROGER DEAKINS, ASC, BSC – DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Nine-time Oscar® nominee ROGER DEAKINS, ASC, BSC was born in Torquay, Devon, England. He attended art college and the National Film School. Roger went on to feature film cinematography, starting in England and later shooting in the United States.

Deakins films include Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men; Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption; Martin Scorsese’s Kundun; Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford; Stephen Daldry’s The Reader (shared credit with Chris Menges); and Joel Coen’s Fargo, The Man Who Wasn’t There, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and True Grit.

Among many other awards, he has been nominated ten times for the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Award and won the award twice for Shawshank Redemption and The Man who Wasn’t There. He has been nominated six times and won the BAFTA award three times for cinematography for The Man Who Wasn’t There, No Country for Old Men and True Grit. In 2011 Deakins received the ASC’s Lifetime Achievement award.

This is Deakins third collaboration with Sam Mendes having worked on Jarhead and Revolutionary Road.


DENNIS GASSNER – PRODUCTION DESIGNER

DENNIS GASSNER is one of cinema’s foremost Production Designers boasting a career spanning over 25 years. Gassner started his career working in the art department on Apocalypse Now, he was fortunate enough to work closely with Francis Ford Coppola and Production Designer Dean Tavoularis at Zoetrope Studios.

Today, Gassner’s creative abilities are consistently applauded by both the American Academy® and the British Association of Film and Television Arts.  In 1991, he won the Oscar® for ‘Best Production Design’ on Bugsy starring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening and was nominated the same year for his work on the Coen brothers’ Barton Fink.    He also won BAFTA awards for Sam Mendes’ Road To Perdition (2002) and Peter Weir’s The Truman Show (1998) and was BAFTA nominated for Production Design on Tim Burton’s Big Fish (2003). His work on the fantasy thriller The Golden Compass earned him an Oscar® nomination.  Gassner returns to the Bond team after having worked on Quantum Of Solace in 2008.


STUART BAIRD, A. C. E. – EDITOR

STUART BAIRD returns as editor for his second James Bond film. He previously worked on Casino Royale in 2006.

Baird has twice been nominated for an Academy Award®, for his work on Superman, directed by Richard Donner, and Michael Apted’s Gorillas in the Mist, starring Sigourney Weaver. Other credits include The Omen, Lethal Weapon I and II, Altered States, Outland, Die Hard II, Demolition Man, Maverick, Legends Of Zorro, Superman II, Vantage Point, Edge Of Darkness, Salt and more recently Green Lantern.

Baird is also known for his work as a director. He directed Executive Decision (2002), U.S. Marshals (1998) and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002).


JANY TEMIME – COSTUME DESIGNER

JANY TEMIME designed the costumes for the Harry Potter films Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, for which she received a Costume Designers Guild Award nomination; Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince; and the two-part Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, for which she won a Costume Designers Guild Award for Part II.

Temime has recently completed work on Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, served as the costume designer on the action adventure Wrath of the Titans starring Sam Worthington.

Temime’s recent credits also include Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges, starring Ralph Fiennes, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson; Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men, starring Clive Owen; Agnieszka Holland’s Copying Beethoven, starring Ed Harris; and Beeban Kidron’s Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, starring Renée Zellweger.

Temime earned a British Independent Film Award nomination for her costume designs for High Heels and Low Lifes, starring Minnie Driver.  She had earlier won a BAFTA Cymru Award for her work on Marc Evans’ House of America, and the 1995 Utrecht Film Festival’s Golden Calf for Best Costume Design for Marleen Gorris’ Oscar®-winning Antonia’s Line.

Her additional credits encompass more than 40 international motion picture and television projects, including Werner Herzog’s Invincible; Todd Komarnicki’s Resistance; Marleen Gorris’ The Luzhin Defense; Paul McGuigan’s Gangster No. 1; Edward Thomas’s Rancid Aluminum; Mike van Diem’s The Character, which won an Oscar® for Best Foreign Language Film; Danny Deprez’s The Ball; George Sluizer’s The Commissioner and Crimetime; Ate de Jong’s All Men Are Mortal; and Frans Weisz’s The Last Call.


THOMAS NEWMAN - COMPOSER

THOMAS NEWMAN is widely acclaimed as one of today’s most prominent composers for film.  He has composed music for more than 50 motion pictures and television series and has earned ten Academy Award nominations and five Grammy Awards.

He is the youngest son of Alfred Newman (1900-1970), the longtime musical director of 20th Century Fox and the composer of scores for such films as Wuthering Heights, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Diary of Anne Frank and All About Eve.  As a child, Thomas Newman pursued basic music and piano studies.  However, it was not until after his father’s death that the younger Newman, then age 14, felt charged with the desire to write.

Newman studied composition and orchestration at USC with Professor Frederick Lesemann and noted film composer David Raksin, and privately with composer George Tremblay.  He completed his academic work at Yale University, studying with Jacob Druckman, Bruce MacCombie and Robert Moore.   Newman also gratefully acknowledges the early influence of another prominent musician, the legendary Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim, who served as a great mentor and champion.

A turning point in Newman’s career took place while he was working as a musical assistant on the 1984 film, Reckless, for which he soon was promoted to the position of composer. And so, at the age of 27, Newman successfully composed his first film score. Since then he has contributed distinctive and evocative scores to numerous acclaimed films, including Desperately Seeking Susan, The Lost Boys, The Rapture, Fried Green Tomatoes, The Player, Scent of a Woman, Flesh and Bone, The Shawshank Redemption, Little Women, American Buffalo, The People Vs. Larry Flynt, Oscar and Lucinda, The Horse Whisperer, Meet Joe Black, American Beauty, The Green Mile, Erin Brockovich, In The Bedroom, Road to Perdition, Finding Nemo, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, Cinderella Man, Jarhead, Little Children, The Good German, Revolutionary Road and Wall-E. His most recent projects include The Debt, The Adjustment Bureau, The Help, and the Margaret Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady.  Newman also composed the music for HBO’s acclaimed 6-hour miniseries “Angels in America” directed by Mike Nichols. He received an Emmy Award for his theme for the HBO original series “Six Feet Under”.

In addition to his work in film and television, Newman has composed several works for the concert stage, including the symphonic work “Reach Forth Our Hands”, commissioned in 1996 by the Cleveland Orchestra to commemorate their city’s bicentennial, as well as “At Ward’s Ferry, Length 180 ft.”, a concerto for double bass and orchestra commissioned in 2001 by the Pittsburgh Symphony.   His latest concert piece was a chamber work entitled “It Got Dark”, commissioned by the acclaimed Kronos Quartet in 2009.  As part of a separate commission by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the work was expanded and adapted for symphony orchestra and string quartet, and premiered at Walt Disney Concert Hall in December of 2009.


ADELE – CO-WRITER AND VOCALIST OF TITLE SONG

At just 24 years of age, London-born Adele is currently the world's best-selling recording artist. Her warm, soulful delivery and emotionally-rich songwriting make her a perfect match for the UK's longest-running film franchise, James Bond 007. Adele's arrival was announced in 2007 when, as a 17-year old newcomer, she was named Critics Choice at the Brit Awards. Her debut album, 19, was released in 2008 along with the singles, Hometown Glory and Chasing Pavements and achieved quadruple platinum status. A year later, Adele would win Grammy Awards for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal, cementing her global reputation.  

Released in early 2011, Adele's second album, 21, would become a worldwide phenomenon, spending 23 weeks at number one on the UK album charts and 24 weeks at number one on the US album charts. Including the multi-platinum hit singles Rolling In The Deep, Someone Like You, Set Fire To The Rain and Rumour Has It, 21 has now sold 24 million albums worldwide and is the biggest selling album of both 2011 and 2012. The album garnered Adele six Grammy Awards including Record of the Year, two BRIT Awards and two Ivor Novello Awards. Skyfall is Adele's first newly written and recorded song of 2012, and her first foray into cinema.


PAUL EPWORTH – CO-WRITER AND PRODUCER OF TITLE SONG

It’s no exaggeration to describe PAUL EPWORTH as the most influential British producer of his generation. Nor is it hyperbole to also call him the most successful and in-demand, too. His recent production roll-call reads like a must-have list for right-minded music fans: Adele’s ‘21’, Florence + The Machine’s ‘Ceremonials’ and ‘Lungs’, The Big Pink’s ‘Brief History Of Love’ (including their huge radio hit ‘Dominos’) and ‘Future This’, Foster The People ‘Torches’, Cee-Lo Green’s ‘The Lady Killer’, Friendly Fires’s ‘Pala’, Plan B’s ‘The Defamation Of Strickland Banks’, notably the massive, definitive ‘Stay Too Long’ single…There aren’t many individuals that can lay claim to single-handedly shaping the music of a generation, but Paul Epworth is among them. This lasting contribution was given worldwide recognition when he picked up four key Grammy awards in 2012 in the categories of Record Of the Year (‘Rollin’ In The Deep’ – Adele); Song Of The Year (‘Rollin’ In The Deep’, which he co-wrote with Adele); Album Of The Year (’21’ – Adele); Producer Of The Year.


ALEXANDER WITT – 2ND UNIT DIRECTOR

ALEXANDER WITT’S career spans over 25 years, starting as a camera assistant and then an operator and director of photography.  He has since earned a stellar reputation as one of the industry’s top visualists as both a second unit director and director of photography. Witt had his directorial debut in 2004 on Resident Evil: Apocalypse staring Milla Jovovich.

Noted for his high-octane car chases and action sequences, his credits as a second unit director include; Speed and Speed 2, Twister, Gladiator, Hannibal, Black Hawk Down, The Bourne Identity, XXX, The Italian Job, Hidalgo and Pirates of the Caribbean:  The Curse of the Black Pearl. Most recently, Witt worked as second unit director on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Robin Hood, The Town, Fast and Furious 5, X-Men: First Class and Safe House.


CHRIS CORBOULD – SPECIAL EFFECTS SUPERVISOR AND MINIATURE EFFECTS SUPERVISOR

CHRIS CORBOULD has been the Special Effects Supervisor on six previous James Bond films, working within the SFX department on a total of thirteen 007 adventures.

Corbould’s Bond career started in 1977 as a technician on The Spy Who Loved Me.  After Moonraker (1979) he began working his way up the ranks and was promoted to senior technician on For Your Eyes Only and A View to a Kill, then floor supervisor on The Living Daylights, and supervisor for the 2nd Unit on Licence to Kill.  In 1995, when Brosnan took the role of Bond in GoldenEye, Chris worked his first 007 film as Supervisor and has been ultimately responsible for the Special Effects on every Bond film since.  Corbould and his team were BAFTA nominated for their work on GoldenEye, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. More recently he was honoured with an Oscar® for Chris Nolan’s Inception.

Corbould’s other impressive film credits as Special Effects Supervisor include; The Mummy, Lara Croft Tomb Raider, Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life, X-Men: First Class, Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and recently released Dark Knight Rises.


GARY POWELL – STUNT COORDINATOR

GARY POWELL returns for his third James Bond films in the role as Stunt Coordinator.  On Casino Royale the stunt team broke a Guinness World Record for the ‘Most Cannon Rolls In a Car’, won the World Stunt Award for ‘Best Stunt At Height’ and Powell himself won the World Stunt Award for ‘Best Stunt Coordinator’.  Previously, Powell worked as a stuntman on the 007 films GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough.

Powell was born into a family of stuntmen and performed his first stunt at the age of 11 in one of the Carry On films. Working his way through the ranks to Stunt Coordinator, his other credits include: Titanic, Braveheart, Saving Private Ryan, Terminator 3, Alexander, The Legend of Zorro, Bourne Ultimatum, Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and most recently, Unstoppable and soon to be released 47 Ronin.


DEBBIE McWILLIAMS – CASTING DIRECTOR

DEBBIE McWILLIAMS has cast ten previous James Bond films; For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View To A Kill, The Living Daylights, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.

Her impressive list of other film credits include Superman I and II, American Werewolf In London, Spies Like Us, Henry V, My Beautiful Launderette, Personal Services, Monty Python’s Meaning Of Life, Othello and, more recently, an animation comedy called Jackboots On Whitehall and the TV series “Borgia”.


DANIEL KLEINMAN - Main Titles Designer
Daniel “Danny” Kleinman is recognised as one of advertising’s most established directors. He has been widely acknowledged as the most awarded commercial director in the world and has collected many of the industry’s highest accolades. He is equally acclaimed in the US and was recently voted commercial director of the decade.

After Hornsey Art School, Daniel went on to work as an illustrator, also collaborating on storyboards with directors working in the emerging music video industry leading to his first music video in 1983.

Daniel pioneered the use of special effects in post-production over the course of directing more than 100 videos in the 80s. From the 90s Daniel has concentrated on advertising. Daniel has also directed TV drama and was BAFTA nominated and won the rose at Montreux. He has also taken over the mantle from Maurice Binder creating the title sequences for the James Bond films.

In 2006 Daniel founded Rattling Stick. In 2012, the company was awarded UK’s No1 Production Company for the fourth time in five years.


STEVE BEGG – VISUAL EFFECTS AND MINATURE SUPERVISOR

From an early age STEVE BEGG had a fascination for Special Visual effects, inspired mainly by the shows of Gerry Anderson (“Thunderbirds”, “Captain Scarlet”, “Space 1999”). Steve Begg then went on to work for Anderson straight from school after impressing him with his amateur 16mm effects. Begg was dropped in the deep end working as Effects Director on several of Anderson’s TV shows. His experience with Anderson led to him work with the legendary Bond VFX maestro Derek Meddings (Live And Let Die , GoldenEye) as one of his technicians on Tim Burton's Batman.

Begg went on to independent VFX supervising work on Lost In Space, Lara Croft, Tomb Raider 1 and 2, Batman Begins (2005) and Golden Compass (2007). He realized his childhood dream of working on a Bond starting with digital effects on GoldenEye then ultimately becoming Supervisor of Visual Effects and Miniatures on Casino Royale and SKYFALL.


GREGG WILSON – ASSOCIATE PRODUCER

GREGG WILSON is the younger son of producer Michael G. Wilson and grandson of the late Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli. He graduated from Stanford University in 2001 where he studied physics and music composition. Gregg’s first job within the Bond franchise was assisting composer David Arnold on the score of The World is Not Enough. On the subsequent Bond film, Die Another Day, his roles included development, production assistance, and sound design.

Over the next few years Gregg worked as a freelance sound designer on films, commercials, and videogames as well as pursuing screenwriting and script development. After working with editor Stuart Baird as an assistant editor on Casino Royale he joined EON Productions full time. He has since been the Assistant Producer on Quantum of Solace and is currently the Associate Producer on SKYFALL.



STUART WILSON – PRODUCTION SOUND MIXER

From a young age STUART WILSON was interested in sound. He was drawn to film as a teenager and his ability with audio, led to a traineeship through the Scottish Film Office and a place at the National Film & TV School.  Since '92 Stuart has worked on a vast array of films as a sound recordist and mixer with film-makers as diverse as Michael Winterbottom, Bernardo Bertolucci, David Cronenberg, Fernando Meirelles, Sofia Coppola, David Yates on the last three Harry Potter films and Spielberg on War Horse for which he was nominated for an Oscar and BAFTA award.

ANDREW NOAKES – CO-PRODUCER
ANDREW NOAKES’ first experience of the film industry was working during the summer holidays for his father who was the Financial Controller on Superman (the movie).  From humble beginnings as a tea boy and filing clerk on Octopussy (1982), Noakes now has twenty-eight films to his credit, including every James Bond film since Octopussy.
On Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) Noakes was promoted to Financial Controller, taking over the reigns from his father who had worked on the 007 films since 1981.   In 2006, in recognition of the growing scale of his role within the James Bond franchise, Noakes was credited as the Associate Producer on Casino Royal and Quantum Of Solace. Andrew Noakes now holds the title of Co-Producer on SKYFALL.


DAVID POPE – CO PRODUCER

David Pope worked as an attorney in his native New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the USA before entering the world of film production on his first film GoldenEye in 1995. Pope is the Chief Executive Officer and Head of Business Affairs for the James Bond production company, Danjaq, LLC, and works full time on Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli’s film, live theatre and licensing businesses.  He is based in Los Angeles, but spends much of the year in London.

Pope is responsible for the legal and business aspects of the Bond films, or as he puts it, “the stuff no one else is interested in doing”. He also works closely on product placement, and with his fellow co-producer Andrew Noakes on insurance, financial and reporting issues, or as he puts it “the other stuff no one else is interested in doing”.

Having been credited as Production Executive on previous Bond films, David Pope has been elevated to the role of “Co-Producer” on SKYFALL.



“ACADEMY AWARD®” and “OSCAR®” are the registered trademarks and service marks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.”

Skyfall, 007 Gun Logo and related James Bond Trademarks © 1962-2012 Danjaq, LLC
and United Artists Corporation.

Skyfall, 007 Gun Logo and related James Bond Trademarks are trademarks of Danjaq, LLC. All Rights Reserved